The present invention relates to a method of and a set for spinal anesthesia.
Spinal anesthesia is well known in medical practice. As shown in FIG. 1, a spinal needle 2' with a stylet 1' is introduced via an introducer 3' through a skin 4', ligamentum flavum 5', epidural space 6', dura mater 7, arachnoid 8' into a subarachnoid space 9' with spinal fluid, where peripheral nerves emerge from the spinal cord and a small amount of local anesthetic introduced through the needle into the space 9' causes a profound anesthesia from the waist down. A major problem with the spinal anesthesia is a PDHP causing headaches and contributed to a loss of spinal fluid through a hole made by the spinal needle. From more than 2 million of diagnostic spinal punctures the incidents of PDPH constitute up to 8% despite the ever reducing diameter of the needles.
In 1989 we suggested (ANAESTHESIA, UK and Ireland, v.20:4:14,1989) that a small amount of antiseptic solution used for skin preparation reaches the subarachnoid space with the tip of the needle bypassing the brain barrier, it contaminates the central nervous system of the patient with highly toxic antiseptic solution and causes the development of benign aseptic self-limited meningismus (PDHP). It was proposed as a hypothesis to wash off the antiseptic solution before administration of anaesthesia by the spinal needle. The prevention of PDHP has been achieved by us in 1086 cases over the last 5 years in our experiments, in which we removed the antiseptic from the patient prior to the administration of anaesthesia.
In known methods of spinal anaesthesia no steps of removal of antiseptic solution were proposed. In known sets for spinal anaesthesia no means were provided for the antiseptic solution removal, as can be seen from FIG. 2 in which the set support S has only an antiseptic application section 2 provided with antiseptic application grip sponges 1, and a spinal anaesthesia section 7 provided with syringes, spinal needle, stylet, introducer, anaesthesia solution reservoir, etc.